Sri Lankan government to evict 66,000 families in Colombo - to free land for business

[Hannah Bell]

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s cabinet approved a defence ministry plan last week to evict 66,000 families from shanties in Colombo City and suburbs to release land for big business. Nearly half a million people will lose their homes and, in many cases, their livelihoods, as they are forced to move to uncertain alternative accommodation.

Announcing the decision on August 12, acting media minister, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa declared that the families were occupying “very valuable land in the City of Colombo in a haphazard manner”. Initially, the government plans to lease 31.5 hectares at two million rupees a perch (about $US18,000 per 25 square metres) to raise money to develop land for commercial development projects.

According to Yapa, a portion of the funds raised will be used to build houses for the families that have been evicted. Such promises are worthless, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in the past. For instance, according to opposition MP Sajith Premadasa, 11,000 families who lost their homes in the devastating 2004 tsunami are still living in refuges. Overall, there are an estimated one million homeless families throughout the island.

The scheme has nothing to do with “uplifting the poor”. The purpose is to clear land in the centre of the capital to further the government’s ambition to transform Colombo into a commercial hub for South Asia. The plan was originally announced in 1990 but had to be shelved due to popular opposition.

The government has involved the military precisely because it fears its plans will provoke resistance.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/sril-a20.shtml